Wednesday, October 29, 2014

This is our second installment of the 2014 NFL season
discussing my performance ratings and additional metrics/statistics that help
us form opinions on each NFL team.Let’s
jump right into the #’s!

Performance Ratings (max grade is 160, 80 on offense and 80
on defense, calculated by grading game by game performance in 16 different
stats on both sides of the ball:

OFFENSE

DEFENSE

TOTAL
TEAM

Blended

Wins

Rating

Rank

Rating

Rank

Rating

Rank

SOS

TOM

6

DEN

54.4

3

44.8

2

99.1

1

2

4

3

NO

59.4

1

33.6

24

92.9

2

21

(5)

6

DAL

56.9

2

35.1

17

92.0

3

26

(2)

5

IND

52.1

4

39.8

8

91.8

4

17

(1)

5

BAL

51.2

5

38.7

11

89.9

5

30

0

4

KC

46.4

10

42.1

4

88.6

6

5

(2)

4

MIA

46.2

12

42.0

5

88.2

7

23

2

4

SEA

49.3

7

38.6

12

87.9

8

8

1

4

SF

45.1

14

41.7

6

86.8

9

1

4

6

DET

36.4

26

48.6

1

85.0

10

31

1

5

PIT

50.1

6

33.8

22

83.8

11

32

1

5

PHI

43.9

17

38.3

13

82.1

12

15

(7)

5

SD

47.9

8

33.9

20

81.9

13

24

4

6

NE

46.4

9

35.1

18

81.5

14

29

11

3

WAS

43.7

19

37.8

14

81.4

15

22

(8)

3

CHI

43.9

16

36.4

16

80.4

16

27

(3)

6

ARI

40.7

24

38.9

10

79.6

17

6

9

5

BUF

35.8

27

43.2

3

79.0

18

19

7

3

NYG

43.5

20

35.0

19

78.5

19

4

0

4

HOU

44.7

15

33.7

23

78.4

20

20

4

4

CIN

46.4

11

31.9

25

78.3

21

8

4

5

GB

46.0

13

31.4

26

77.4

22

16

8

1

NYJ

35.7

28

40.0

7

75.7

23

11

(15)

4

CLE

43.2

21

31.3

27

74.5

24

12

6

2

ATL

43.8

18

29.3

28

73.0

25

25

(2)

3

MIN

33.2

30

39.6

9

72.8

26

28

(1)

2

TEN

37.1

25

33.9

21

70.9

27

14

0

3

CAR

41.8

22

29.0

29

70.8

28

13

4

2

STL

41.6

23

27.4

31

69.1

29

4

(3)

1

JAC

32.1

31

36.9

15

69.0

30

10

(10)

0

OAK

31.6

32

27.7

30

59.4

31

9

(7)

1

TB

33.7

29

24.3

32

58.0

32

18

(4)

The Denver Broncos are the
top rated team & frankly it’s not close.Not only are they performing at an
extremely high level with a 99.1 rating their blended SOS is also 2nd
toughest in the NFL, a very unusual dynamic – playing so well & versus
a tough schedule.

Many will be surprised
seeing the Saints at #2 but they are playing solid football overall –
however, as we have seen in a few games already this season, their TOM of
(5) is the worst of the Top 11 teams in the ratings.As we saw on SNF this past week vs. Green
Bay, if they can hang onto the football they remain an extremely dangerous
squad, especially offensively.

Five of the top seven teams
are from the AFC

The top 5 teams in the
overall ratings are also the Top 5 offenses in the NFL – that is not a big
surprise since football has really shifted towards more of an offensive
mentality over the last decade or so

Seattle checks in at #8,
perhaps below what many expect; however, remember last season although
they were in the Top 2 with Denver their TOM was +20 – this season it’s
just +1.

Next is my red flag/green light identification.Here I will ONLY use my performance ratings
& TOM to identify teams that could be undervalued (green light) by Vegas
because they are performing better than many believe versus red flag teams that
have an inflated record and reputation in Vegas compared to their true on the
field performance.

Red Flag: CLE, BUF, ARI

Green Light: NO, WAS, NYJ

Now let’s examine conference and divisional breakdowns to
see where the strengths and weaknesses are across the NFL landscape.Here are the figures – I simply take each
team’s performance rating ranking from first matrix, sum up each division’s
four teams and rank with the lowest rating being the toughest (because #1 is
the best / #32 the worst):

Rating

NFL

NE

49

1

AW

51

2

AN

61

3

AE

62

4

NW

63

5

NN

74

6

AS

81

7

NS

87

8

Next up, here are my projected standings after Wk8.As a reminder, this process involves playing
out the entire season based on my power ratings for each team.For more information on this topic and
process, and to see how accurate this exercise has been in the past, please read
this blog entry from July 31, 2012.

AFC East

Wins

Loss

NFC East

Wins

Loss

NE

9.85

6.15

DAL

10.53

5.47

BUF

8.51

7.49

PHI

9.68

6.32

MIA

8.42

7.58

NYG

7.40

8.60

NYJ

4.56

11.44

WAS

7.10

8.90

AFC North

NFC North

BAL

9.84

6.16

DET

10.62

5.38

CIN

9.20

6.80

GB

9.42

6.58

PIT

9.01

6.99

CHI

7.14

8.87

CLE

8.25

7.75

MIN

6.53

9.47

AFC South

NFC South

IND

10.00

6.00

CAR

7.63

8.37

HOU

8.31

7.69

NO

8.23

7.77

TEN

5.17

10.83

ATL

5.56

10.44

JAC

3.41

12.59

TB

3.91

12.09

AFC West

NFC West

DEN

12.77

3.24

ARI

10.20

5.81

SD

9.33

6.67

SEA

9.80

6.20

KC

8.98

7.02

SF

8.99

7.01

OAK

2.44

13.56

STL

5.22

10.78

Playoffs

Playoffs

#6 CIN @ #3 NE

#6 PHI @ #3 ARI

#5 SD @ #4 BAL

#5 SEA @ #4 CAR

#1 DEN

#1 DET

#2 IND

#2 DAL

Here are the current playoff projections where I use my
power ratings to play out the entire season.Each team’s power rating, which can change week to week based on my
performance ratings, provides a projected spread on each game (including a home
field advantage/road disadvantage variable) which then correlates to a % chance
at winning each game.I simply add up
the sums for each team, adjust for actual results once those games are played,
and it all comes to my projected standings listed above.One aspect of this analysis to note is the
teams will be slightly more “bunched” compared to where team’s actual records
will finish (especially early in the season) – meaning, using this analysis to
project order of finish, playoff berths and seeds is very accurate, but using
it to project actual wins and losses will not be as accurate since teams on the
outer edges of wins (very high or very low) will typically win more/less than
projected.

Last analysis for this week (I will post each week just like
the standings above) is my power rankings.My rankings are comprised of a pair of numbers: one measures team
performance in my performance ratings (discussed in the opener of this entry);
two measures team performance vs. the spread.These two ratings are weighted and combined for my official power
rankings.For my blog I will only
provide the order of the teams, not the actual power ranking as that is for my
eyes only because it is used in my weekly handicapping process as potential
model plays:

The SportsBoss is a handicapping "broker" that offers NFL, NBA, NCAA football, NCAA basketball, NHL and MLB picks. The Sports Boss leverages his background which includes both a BS and MBA in Finance to build robust, analytical models which aid in predicting outcomes of games in every sport.